Grace
by Kimblee Whitehead
Summary: It was the one night Casey doesn't take her bike home. They are called to a scene where Casey's passed out on a sidewalk in her neighborhood. What they don't know was it was the night Casey learned what fear was.


**Grace**

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><p>She couldn't remember the last time she had not taken her bike to work. She hated walking. You couldn't feel the breeze in your face, or the rhythm of the ground as you slowly went over each crack and bump in your path. Walking was a waste of time. They invented bikes so people didn't have to walk.<p>

It was a chilly night, the air had a certain crisp to it. The wind brought an un-welcome kindness, an eerie tingle in her spine. The usually busy streets of the city were oddly calm. She was alone, not even the traffic was there to give her any company. It was just her, Casey Novak, trying to quickly make her way home.

She heard a bump behind her, and she quickly turned around as her heart-rate started to increase. There was nobody there. That was the other reason she preferred to take her bike home. Because she knew for a fact that evil lurked all around her. Rapists, kidnappers, murderers, or all of the above. They existed, lurking in the shadows of the night. Her bike provided a zooming safety, not giving evil a chance to have its way with her.

At least she was in familiar territory, she thought. She knew her neighborhood like the back of her hand. She had allies everywhere. She knew a million places she could go to hide should something go down. But that safety net still wasn't as nice as a bike was. She found herself wishing there were at least a couple of other people on the street with her, people who could act as a witness.

As she got closer to her apartment, the air started to feel colder. She felt a knot in her stomach. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there was a sixth sense telling her to go back. Call a friend, and go away. But she kept walking forward. It was her paranoia talking. She had developed it after working with rape victims for so long.

She walked under the light of a street lamp, and noticed she could see her breath. Maybe it would snow. She nervously placed her hands in her pockets for warmth. As she stood under, that's when she saw it.

There was a woman in front of her, walking slowly under the streetlamp in front of her. Her hair was short brown, a mess all around her head. She wore a pink sun dress, unusual for the cold. Her skin was pale, and Casey couldn't notice that she was walking oddly. Almost like it was a limp…but not at the same time. Her legs seemed to swing around as she walked. She didn't appear to have a certain direction in mind, she was just walking.

The alarm bells in Casey's mind continued to go off, but Casey didn't listen to them. The woman didn't look like a threat. If anything, she looked like she needed help. What if she had been assaulted? Or abused? Maybe she needed somebody to take her somewhere warm, if not to a hospital.

Casey continued her walk to her apartment. She was only a few buildings away. She wanted to get there, and never have to walk back from work ever again. But every step she made, the closer she got to the woman, the louder the bells were. The message of her instincts to run away became louder and louder.

Even as Casey slowed her steps, pretty soon, she found she was a mere five feet behind the woman. The woman was mumbling something to herself, something that Casey couldn't quite make out.

It was then, the woman stopped. She just froze, all the mumbling stopped. Casey stopped as well, feeling her body start to shake. Her gaze didn't leave the back of the woman in front of her. There was a silence that could cut glass. Not even a breeze to make a sound.

"_Where…where…" _She mumbled. Her voice was soft, Casey couldn't just barely make out her words. The woman slowly turned her neck towards Casey, and Casey's heart was about to beat out of her chest. Then Casey saw her face. Blood was splattered across her face, and there was a certain look in eyes Casey knew all too well. Frantic, deranged, unstable.

_"Where's my baby!" _She demanded, her voice much more forceful.

Casey was afraid. She felt her knees start to shake, and adrenaline pumped throughout her body. But even though she was terrified, she couldn't bring herself to scream. She couldn't even bring herself to move.

_"Where is my baby? Tell me where my baby is! Where is my baby?" _

With each demand, her voice became louder, more forceful. More…demonic. The deranged look on her face, only increased.

With a shaking hand, Casey pointed in front of her.

"T-that way!" She stuttered out, "Your baby is over there."

The woman quickly turned towards the direction Casey was pointing, quickly going off. Casey didn't take the time to watch, however, and started to run the opposite way. She didn't care she was running away from her apartment, she needed to get away. She couldn't remember a time she had ran as fast as she was. Her hand reached for her cell phone in her pocket. She needed to call somebody. Anybody. She fumbled through the buttons, not even looking at the contacts. She didn't care who, as long as she could join their safety.

"_SHE'S NOT HERE!"_ Casey heard a voice scream out. She heard something, a sound she couldn't describe rapidly approach her. As she ran, Casey made the mistake of taking a peek behind her.

The woman from before was lunging at her. It almost seemed as if she was flying towards her. There was now anger in her eyes. She was going too fast, her face now merely an inch away from Casey's. There seemed to be even more blood on the woman's face. Casey screamed, the woman's face being the last thing she saw before she blacked out.

_"Casey…Casey…"_

The voiced seemed familiar. She just couldn't make it out, the throbbing of her head too much. She felt warm. Her mind was racing, slowly processing what was happening. Casey slowly started to hear more sounds, sirens, people talking.

_"Casey…come on, Casey…"_

She was figuring out just what was happening, and that's when she remembered. The woman, her eyes.

Casey yelped, and her eyes shot open.

"Casey!"

She felt someone grab her, and Casey looked to see a familiar face. Detective Olivia Bensen was there, holding her tightly.

"Liv…" Casey mumbled. Felt another hand grab her, looking to see it was Melinda Warner.

"Thank god, Casey…" Olivia mumbled.

"How…what did…how did you..." Casey found she couldn't even say a coherent sentence. Her body was still shaking, the images from before still present in her head.

"I was with Fin when you called me," Melinda explained, "All I heard was static and some incoherent mumbling…what happened?"

"Um…" Casey replied, looking to Olivia, not that the detective would have any answers for her, "I…I don't know. My head hurts."

Olivia gave her a comforting smile.

"We're going to take you to the hospital, make sure you're okay. Alright sweetie?"

Casey had no choice but to nod. She had no plans on telling them what she saw, what had happened. They'd thing she's insane. She wasn't even sure if what she saw actually happen had happened.

All she wanted to do was sleep.

"This is the second time we've been called to this neighborhood," Munch muttered to Fin. Fin nodded, taking in the sites around her. It was very close to this spot when they had been called, now that he thought about it.

"Yeah. But Casey's alive," Fin replied.

He remembered it well. It appeared to be a rape- homicide. Their victim was in her twenties pretty. She was wearing a pink dress, no underwear. Cause of death was caused by going off the building. Looking into it, it appeared as if she had jumped off the building. They found a suicide note, and no sign that she had been raped. They had found she had a child, a one year old girl. However, they never found the baby.

Fin looked over and watched as Olivia and Melinda escorted Casey into the ambulance. However, as he watched, he thought he saw something. A woman with a bloodied face in a pink sun dress. Fin blinked. Was it really?

Fin rubbed his eyes, and she was gone.

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><p><strong>Based off of a ghost story I saw lately, my muse was in full activation mode. I love October. Sorry I haven't been here, lately. I was grounded, so...you know how that goes. Thank you for reading.<strong>

**Kimblee Whitehead, we're done here.**


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